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{mosimage}25 February 2008 We, students at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, consider the banning of the phrase “Israeli Apartheid” a tactic similar to one that the erstwhile apartheid regime of South Africa employed and current Apartheid Israel practices; devices that attempt to silence the voices of justice and truth through intimidation and coercion.
South Africans who were part of the liberation struggle unequivocally understand Israel to be an Apartied State – in fact, some have even gone further to regard apartheid Israel worse than apartheid South Africa.
Those of us that make the case that Israel is an Apartheid State, both, based on the comparison to the former South African government as well as international law are not suggesting anything radical. Our ideas on what is happening in Palestine have at various times been expressed by mainstream people like the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Professor John Dugard; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Mr Willie Madisha, President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions; Eddie Maque, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, poet, Professor Keith Gottschalk; anti-apartheid activist, Professor Farid Esack; and South African Minister, Ronnie Kasrils, to mention but a few. These are all individuals who were at some point deemed controversial for their commitment to end apartheid and build a non-racial democracy. Today we live in a free South Africa because others were ‘controversial’ and offensive; because others fought to speak truth to power.
If using the term “Israeli apartheid” is a such a violation of dignity, tolerance and human rights and the banning of the term is to really advance these values then please ,we plead to McMaster university, silence us South Africans as well. Silence Archbishop Desmond Tutu; silence Professor John Dugard;...and silence the millions of other South Africans that stand by Palestinians in their legitimate struggle to end Israeli Apartheid. You can try but you will not succeed. Palestinians and their supporters much more than South Africans not only face silly attempts by you to silence them by administrative decree but by dungeons, bullets, tank shells and missiles fired from planes and helicopters. They remain steadfastness and one day we are certain will enjoy the democratic rights we have today. Those who placed obstacles in the path of the global anti-apartheid movement will be remembered as we South Africans remember those who supported the South African apartheid regime.
Our friends from the SPHR and MMPJ are correct in naming the state of Israel for what it is - an apartheid regime. This duty to the Palestinians is not arbitrary or selective but merely an extension of our non-racialism. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians.”
The Wits PSC gives its full support to the students of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) and McMaster Muslims for Peace & Justice (MMPJ). We stand by them.
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All.
PSC WITS
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg
South Africa
Email:
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Phone: 0842119988
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